As the past gets further away, it tends to fade into memory, and the memory fades. As I get older, the past gets further away.

I know I can’t do it justice, as the present can’t bring back the past in any way except memory.

Nevertheless, I’ll give it a try.

We were leaving Aunt Mary in Greece, heading north to Yugoslavia. We were taking the train along the right side of the map, northeast, along the coast we hadn’t seen before except by similarity.

We came to Thessaloniki, the largest Greek city north of Athens. It looked interesting from the train window, and we wished our itinerary would allow us to stop. Maybe next time.

There were special things about Thessaloniki that we had read about and would like to know more about and see in person.

The train, that narrow gauge overcrowded Greek train, chugging northward, was like its counterpart from Patras to Athens, and we remembered why so many young passengers threw their luggage out the window and followed it to finish the journey on foot. The train was overcrowded coming in to Athens. It was overcrowded coming out. We went through the same crowded agony.

We said, “Let’s get off at the next stop that has an airport, and fly the rest of the way to Ljubljana.”

That was the plan, a good plan, and we got off the train at Skopje in North Macedonia.

We asked the woman at the window about flights to Ljubljana, bought tickets for later that afternoon, and asked if there was somewhere we could rent a room and rest for a few hours until the flight.

She said, “Well, sometimes I rent my apartment to tourists while I’m at work. It won’t cost very much, here’s the key, I have a friend who’s a cab driver and will take you there, let me call him”

The driver magically appeared and took us the long way around, he said to “see the sights.”

“I want to show you my city, what you’ll be leaving, here’s the airport you’ll be flying out of, I’ll pick you up in time, and over here we have…”

The longer ride is just what cab drivers do with tourists to raise the meter numbers and charge more, but we were tired, had enough money from travelers checks we had carefully shepherded, and rather than complain, we were grateful and relieved.

The driver told us when he’d be back to take us to the airport, we went into the small apartment where there was a bed, and we fell onto it.

I used the bathroom, tried to open the window for fresh air, and I think I broke the lock. I decided not to mention it, because we’d be gone before they found out, and anyway they might not notice, or think it was someone else previous. I didn’t want to create an international incident and become a felon and fugitive fleeing across Europe, so I just fell across the bed and lapsed immediately into sleep until the alarm woke us up in time for the taxi to the airport.

It did cross my mind, briefly, that Skopje did seem to be a progressive city, that they may have thought that Shirley and I wanted the room for a few hours sexually, like the brothels I’ve heard of that rent rooms by the hour, or like the red light district in Amsterdam, but the Skopjens didn’t seem to care, they got their money, and we got on the plane and left town.

It was not a big plane, did local flights, and we got to Ljubljana.

I remember getting off the bus from the airport to the train station, unloading our luggage, and looking for the hotel our AAA travel agent friend had booked ahead for us and was now awaiting our arrival.

I got local maps, used my finger and traced the way to the hotel. There it was, right in front of us, at the end of the street!

I said, dragging the luggage, “Let’s go, it’s only a block away.”

Shirley said, “No, I want a taxi.”

I said, “I’ll drag your luggage too. It’ll save us money. We need to ration it to make it last. And it’s only right there at the end of the block. You can see it from here.”

She said, “I want a taxi.”

So we hailed a cab.

The driver looked at us questioningly, but no complaints, it was another fare.

It was a nice room in a nice hotel, we settled in, then rambled around the city.

We had come to see Igor, and he appeared. He had his own apartment, and another room provided by the university where he studied, researched, and taught. He said, “Stay at my apartment and save your money. I’m living in my other place with my girlfriend, provided by the university.” He helped us move, and we really settled in.

I should say something about Igor, though he deserves a blog entry of his own.

Igor was part of the Yugoslavian contingent of serendipitous friends one encounters and latches on to, especially around a university, where foreign students come from all directions, become friends, and you mix your lives together.

It was like all those friends from India who came to UCR and began living next to us in student housing. Or the African contingent who came for the same reason. We were already global before we ever came to Europe.

In Pasadena, it was Caltech and JPL that drew them. When you meet one, you meet the others from their country. Your circle expands in directions and ways you didn’t expect.

Igor was a bright young man, probably brilliant. He came to continue advanced studies at Caltech under the guidance of our friend and famous neighbor who lived across the street and then moved around the corner into a bigger house.

Igor was from Jugoslavija (or ‘Yugoslavia’ to us in America), Slovenija, Ljubljana, as were our other close friends from JPL.

So we all had a lot in common.

Igor said, “Whenever I tell people my name is Igor, they act all funny strange.”

I leaned over, limped and shuffled, turned my head sideways, looked at him with my slant eye, and said thickly, “I don’t know, Master, I don’t know.”

He said, “You’re doing it too!”

Igor was young, lean athletic, close-cropped blonde, eager and enthusiastic. He loved everything about life. He loved playing jokes and playing tennis. When we were over at the Petrač’s, pronounced Petrach, he would sit on the couch and put his arm around my shoulders and lean close, which made me a little nervous, but which I decided he was just being European. He wanted to be everywhere at once, and bounced the room as he filled it.

He told Slovenian jokes, and Bosnian jokes, like the jokes we tell here about stereotypical dumb, like “southerners.” The wealthier Slovenians unfairly look down on Bosnians as an inferior subculture, primarily because the Bosnian countryside is mainly farmland, and Igor was keen to share some of the jokes that were popular in Slovenija at the time. Here is a sample of what passed for “funny” back then.

A Slovenian goes to Bosnia to visit a friend, and they’re walking down the road, the wife twenty paces ahead.

The Slovenian says with astonished praise, “Most countries make the wife walk behind. You must be socially advanced to let her precede you.”

The Bosnian explains, “After the war, we still have land mines.”

Or the one, for a PG audience, about the Bosnian who wants to buy a new refrigerator, and goes to the appliance store.

The salesman shows off the features, and the Bosnian is especially impressed by the egg keeper on the inside door where the row of sunken little craters holds a dozen eggs. “This is where you put your eggs.”

The Bosnian buys the refrigerator and takes it home.

Later, he sees the salesman who asks, “How did that egg holder work out for you?”

The Bosnian replies, “All right, I guess, but it hurts like hell when you shut the door.”

Buh dump bump.

That’s not funny to everyone, humor is not universally the same, and I don’t think Igor was racist or mean-spirited, just that he liked to laugh and found funny wherever he looked.

He really liked people, everyone, and Shirley and I were part of everyone.

Igor was competitive. He trained for the Iron Man Competition. That’s like an Olympic Triathlon event where you ride a bike very fast for ten miles, run very fast for ten miles, climb a mountain and swim a river. He took his competitive eagerness and applied it to tennis. He challenged me to a game. I’m not especially good, but I did play on the team in high school and loved the game, so he expected a good match. He was frustrated because he could never beat me. I always won, and had him running all over the court.

He devised a get-back-at-me plan. He kept me up very late drinking slivovitz, also known as plum brandy. I wasn’t used to drinking, still am not, and it didn’t take long to get my head spinning. He persisted. Then he came by at 6:00 in the morning. “Let’s play tennis, grab your racket, come on, let’s go!”

I was almost awake, got to the courts, rushed the net, he wrong-footed me, and I went down with two loud snaps, tried to get up, fell back down. Rushed to the hospital, the doctor said in a German accent, “You should have broken your ankle. That would heal faster. You tore the ligaments…”

I said, “What kind of doctor are you? You’re supposed to make me feel better.”

I was in a cast for weeks.

Then there was the time we took Igor to Palm Springs. He had heard of it and wanted to go. We played tennis there at a court in a park, I won again, and we three, Shirley, Igor, and I, started to walk toward town and then later took the aerial tramway to the top of Mount San Jacinto where we could see the world for miles.

It was a hot day, we were all sweating, Igor was wearing those tight white very little shorts that I guess you wear in Europe when you’re athletic like Iron Man, and suddenly he ran across someone’s lawn up to the porch, turned on the garden hose and started drinking vociferously.

I said, “Hey! You’re trespassing!”

He said, “I have to drink immediately or I will die.”

I said, “We’re all thirsty, but that doesn’t give us the right to…”

He explained. Apparently he has some kind of rare  disease where the equilibrium of the body is precarious, he was taking medicine for it, and the doctors told him he must never be far from water, must drink regularly and often, or he could indeed die.

We cried, “Why didn’t you tell us?”

He said, “No big deal. I can handle it. I just went too long and forgot. You had me playing tennis…”

That was Igor, riding the crest of a wave he thought would go on forever.

We took the aerial ride to the top of the mountain and had lunch, an ok meal for tourists, nothing special except the view.

Then there was that stretch of vacation when he brought his parents over to visit from Croatia, the part of Yugoslavia next to Slovenija. Igor had to work, and we were the assigned baby sitters for his parents. Joze and Zina were country folk. Joze was a farmer, used to hard work, hadn’t seen much of the world. His illustrious son was treating his parents to a vacation and we took them around.

Our car, a beautiful old burgandy-red Volvo 164e, a quality model, had been in an accident and the right front side was partly smashed in. Joze said he would fix it for us. He took a big fallen branch from the pine tree, levered it, and pried the metal out a little so it looked a little better, then repaired the headlight and aimed it correctly to match the other one. We thanked him for his effort.

He was proud of his farm in Croatia, land that he owned. He said, “How much do you pay for water?”

I wasn’t sure what he meant, and asked, “Do you mean for the whole house and yard, shower, bath, cooking, washing?”

He said, “Yes, water. Water.”

I showed him our Rubio Cañon water bill and he was disappointed it wasn’t higher.

He said proudly, “I pay nothing, nothing! I have a well.”

We took them to the Huntington Gardens. That was a lot of plants. He was a farmer and respected plants. But it was summer, it’s hotter in California than it is in Croatia. He and Zina were not dressed for the weather, their ample bodies were overcovered, and instead of wandering along the paths through the gardens, they hovered under the shade of a tree and Joze kept a water soaked handkerchief draped on top of his head. People passing by said, “Not from around here, are you?” 

They were interested in American food, where you buy it, how you eat it. We got in the drive-thru line at In-N-Out Burger, inched forward to the window where they passed our burgers fries and shakes through the car window. Then we drove to a shady spot and ate in the car.

It was pure California, and they loved it.

They went back to Croatia after their vacation abroad, but kept close contact with their son. They wanted him to get married, thought he should have married years ago. They wanted grandchildren.

So they kept sending him Slovenian girls to try out. He would keep them for awhile, use them up and send them back, and they would send another one. He showed us pictures. It was hard to choose.

He told us of his latest adventure. He had always wanted to see Death Valley. He took the girl of the moment, they loaded drinks and water into the car, and took off.

They drank everything before they got there. Death Valley was deserted. It was the hottest part of the hot summer. No one knew they were there. They entered the hottest spot in the country, pulled off the road to take pictures of the girl sitting on the hood of the car, the classic cheese cake pose, then got back in to continue driving.

They were off road, the wheels spun in the sand without traction. They were stuck, thirsty, Igor was on the verge of a seizure, they contemplated trying to drink fluid from the radiator, then they took off parts of their clothes and stuffed them under the tires, got back on the road and came home to tell the tale.

 Igor laughed it off, saying, “We almost died!”

I was stern and said, “Yes, you could have died! It’s your choice if you want to throw your own life away, but to jeopardize an innocent girl, how thoughtless, inconsiderate…!” I’m not usually assertive, though I was a little older than he was, but I let him have it. I chastised him, for his own good, and especially for hers.

He knew we were friends who cared about each other. I think and hope he took my words to heart.

When we’d go to a restaurant and had to wait to be seated, he’d wander over to the table where people were still eating and said, “Are you almost finished?” He’d walk by other tables, and if he liked the looks of their food, he’d say, “Where’s my piece?” Sometimes they gave him a bite.

We had been friends long enough to share the joy of living. He felt that Shirley and I had given of ourselves, and he wanted to give something back in appreciation.

With his fine organized mind, he planned to the last detail a surprise for us, a wedding anniversary dinner, took us to Yamashiro, the incredible hill top restaurant that overlooks the entire valley, the whole Los Angeles Basin. He drove us up to valet parking and led us in to our table at the edge of the view. It was a sumptuous feast, wine, toasting, curated dessert. It remains one of my most wonderful memories.

So that was Igor.

On our Europe trip we were going to see Igor in his home country. 

He was tied up and down at work, saw us when he could, and unleashed us into his home world.

Ljubljana is a beautiful city, a wonderful and walkable city. We loved the bridges, the triple bridge with dragons. There were dragons everywhere.  They were on the bridges. They were up on posts. They were chained like guardians by people’s front doors, chained so they couldn’t fly away. They were made in the Iron Works in Kropa, famous for smelting and foundry and forge. The Kropa dragons were symbols of the country, and everybody loved them. We loved them too. We bought a little one on a chain, and brought it home to guard our house.

We walked everywhere. We strolled by the lovely opera house, just the right size, and I felt in my pocket for money in case there were tickets and performances. But it was summer, off season, and I took my regret with me.

There was a little place we went to by recommendation. It was a little café or restaurant sidelined to the central park. I’m trying to remember, I think it was called something like The Black Cat. It had wonderful coffee and pastries, and, I think crèmeschnitte, those creamy flaky square cut pastries that we had loved in Vienna which was their parent home, but, good as the originals were, we thought the Slovenian ones were better, and we ate too many too often, and never complained about too much. Everybody loved The Black Cat, and when we went there, we felt like locals, part of the city, the community.

We were walking through the park one day when a fellow came up to us from his grill, offering sandwiches freshly made on a bun, grilled pork chops cooked just right with sauce and maybe something green, vegetable, maybe also pickle, maybe tomato. Street food, but some of the best anything I’ve ever eaten. From me, that’s very high praise.

“Slovenian burger,” he said to us, the American tourists, and we laughed together. I took a bite, and said, “Yours are better.”

We saw a posted notice for an evening concert, and we went. Tickets were not expensive, it was in the garden of a church. The night was dark, but there were lights in the city around us, and spotlights onto the stage. The featured concert was the Tuvan Throat Singers. We had heard about them back home. Since we were from Pasadena, we knew about Richard Feynman’s desire to go and perform with them. They came from the east, Outer Mongolia, to as far west as Yugoslavia. I don’t know if they ever got as far west as the U.S., or further west, California. We never expected to see them live in our lifetime. But here they were in person right in front of us, in their long robes, in a monastery garden, chanting the depths of the lowest human voice, for hours into the endless night.

Ljubljana was magic.

Ljubljana was also a hub of transportation, and we took the bus to Radovljica and rode down the allee of trees past the factory for Rogaska crystal, Slovenija’s answer to Waterford.

Of course we bought a little bit, carefully wrapped, for the long trip home.

We took the bus to Kranj to see the Beekeeping Museum. This is everything bee. It’s a world bee center for miles around. Visitors from other countries come to experience all things bee. There were examples and models and charts and honey and hives and wax, and variations of bee. There was a beautiful tall many-drawer wood cabinet, each drawer of bee lore fronted by a wood plaque painted in vivid colors portraying beekeeping through the ages, the various stages of beekeeper life. We bought a set of postcards showing the pictures.

Years later I talked to the bee people at the Citrus Experiment Station in Riverside, who gave a lecture on latest developments. They seemed not to know about their Slovenian counterpart and I encouraged them to connect, collaborate, go visit each other, they have so much in common, so much to talk about. They should “bee aware.” They said, “We’ll bee hive,” and I said, “You stole my joke.”

Kranj was a lovely little city that almost stops the breath as it perches on a cliff above the river down below. We saw people down there, playing in the water, and if we had more time, we might have found our way down to join them.

In its own little garden by the same ravine, by itself was the smallest church I’ve ever seen, just possibly the smallest in the world, they said it was the oldest, almost like a roadside chapel too small to be a church. 

It was there before there were cathedrals. The walls were thick and heavy, the roof low, the windows small and few. The doorway was so low you had to bend down and stoop to enter, and once inside, you could stand if you were not tall. I stood. I saw the little altar, the few seats for the few faithful who came at any time of the day to kneel and pray.

We knelt and prayed and entered back out into the world, walked a little further, through a gate, and were in the middle of a wine fest. The fruit of the local vine was on display for buying and tasting. We especially liked the robust red.

Back the other way, along the main street, there was a moving crowd, loud voices, and a procession. It was Kranjska Noč (literally Kranj Night) or Kranj Fest. Throngs of people, mostly local, were pressing against a rolling wagon with a huge barrel, a spigot flowing beer, cups filled and passed to eager reaching hands.

I asked, “How much?” The guy standing in the cart and passing the beer, said, “It’s free! We’re celebrating!” and he passed two cups for me and Shirley. Good beer.

I wondered, did we come at just the right time, or is it like this every night, or maybe they just knew we were coming.

I thought again how lucky we were to come to Europe on the tail of Chernobyl, those fewer tourists braving the distant radioactive air, and given special attention and gratitude for bringing their tourist dollars.

We liked Slovenija so much we didn’t want to leave. We came back the very next year.

But this time we had just enough time to get back to Amsterdam and catch our flight home.